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Lessons from Hollywood: Clean Energy Will End the World

“Look honey, another playboy billionaire just tried to save the planet!”

<DARK KNIGHT RISES and AVENGERS spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned!>

The development of clean, renewable energy sources is one of the greatest challenges facing our planet today, or so I’m told.

Now I’m no physicist and to be honest, I’m about the furthest thing from being politically aware that you’re likely to find in someone who actually has access to the internet. But here’s something I do know: clean energy is bad for humanity. It’s going to cause the deaths of millions, if not the destruction of then entire world. I know this because Hollywood has told me so.

Thanks to a number of highly successful box office blockbusters, I have become absolutely terrified at the prospects of breakthrough clean energy technology, and you should be, too. Over and over we’re told, as soon someone develops a machine that can supply pollution-free power to civilization, some psychopathic jack-off is going to come along and either turn it into a bomb, or worse, use it to open up an intergalactic portal for a horde of homicidal alien invaders.

Here are a few case studies just off the top of my head:

SPIDERMAN 2 — Doc Ock sets out to perfect fusion power under the pretense of benefiting mankind, but unfortunately, he doesn’t have it all quite figured out. So when a short circuit fries his brain-pan, he decides to follow through with his experiment and blow up New York. Well it was the thought that counts, right Octavius?

THE AVENGERS — Tony Stark is set to unveil his new latest creation that will solve humanity’s energy crisis forever. Then along comes a Norse God who mindfucks another scientist into rewiring the whole thing to power a cosmic superhighway for a pissed off legion of alien assholes who apparently have nothing better to do than wreck New York. Way to go, Stark!

DARK KNIGHT RISES — At least when Bruce Wayne realizes that his own clean energy reactor prototype is capable of being weaponized by probably just about any lunatic who might feel like blowing up Gotham, he has the good sense to mothball the project. Except that he leaves it plugged in so that when that lunatic comes along he’ll have no problem turning it into a giant, fucking bomb with which to blow up Gotham (which we all know is really New York). That’s thinking ahead, Wayne!

WATCHMEN — Do I even need to mention this convoluted mess? Dr. Manhattan gives free energy to the world in the form of a bunch of nuclear reactors, which some maniac then wants to BLOW UP so that he can teach the world a lesson and avert a nuclear war. WTF??? Thanks for nothing, Dr. Manhattan.

So, what can we conclude from all of this?

First, New York may be the greatest city in the world, but if someone actually develops a source of clean energy, I would get the hell out of Dodge, ASAP.

Second, despite all the celebrity campaigning to save the world, Hollywood wants us to believe that solving the problems of society, namely the whole energy crisis, is actually a very, very bad thing for mankind. We’ve got a billion dollars worth of ticket sales to prove it and I’m pretty sure I’ve left plenty of other examples out.

So until someone comes up with a new plot device or at least shows us a possible future in which clean energy technology actually benefits the world, I say stock up on sunscreen, burn those fossil fuels, and let’s take our chances with the global warming. It beats getting vaporized by some maniac or eviscerated by a roid-raging alien, right?

And they should be! The government has our best interest in mind and is only trying to protect us from the inevitable grizzly end should someone actually perfect a clean energy technology. God help us!

Word to that! Or, you just make sure that you write into your contracts that you don’t cover alien invasions, giant monster attacks, collateral damage caused by super heroes, or destruction as a result of super weapons created by evil masterminds.

Hey to get clean renewable energy in the Iron Kingdoms all you have to do is Burn the congealed souls of the fallen, or kill your god…((Necrotite, and Nyss respectively)) not like those filthy coal burning slags in Cygnar, and I right Brothers? :->

Soul burning isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It leaves a sticky residue and the smell is really hard to get out of your clothes. It also attracts internals, and once those party crashers show up, there’s almost nothing you can do to get rid of them.

If we are ever attacked by aliens who have watched our movies they are bound to think that New York is either the most hated place in the world, or the most important place in the world since we keep trying to destroy it and everything that ever attacks us goes straight to New York.
I wonder what they will do.

The upshot is that New York always prevails, so as far as alien invaders should be concerned, it’s totally unconquerable. Because it is. Personally, I think the aliens will invade Sacramento. No one would ever expect that.

Not to take the humor out and go too serious, but come on Matt, you work in a narrative-driven industry too and know the answer to all this: world-peace just makes for boring movies/games! Hollywood can’t sell something where harmony wins out- because people aren’t interested in watching people who all get along. Then there’s nothing to gossip about at the water-cooler or people to vilify for their moral and ethical positions and their economic policies 😉

Our stories revolve around our conflicts because our conflicts are what shape us into the kinds of people who can yearn for a utopia we cannot seem to achieve.